Monster on the Rampage
Another useless abstraction to chip away at the consumer has been created by the financial world. It is called a gift card. The "gift" apparently refering to what the issuer gets out of it(http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/02/gift_cards_congress.html). This is chutzpah to the power of googol. It would be interesting to see what percentage of the money on gift cards remains unused. Also issuers have obscure rules to benefit no one but themselves. Gift cards are no better than giving someone cash (or check, or money order, or cashier's check) as a present. If anything they are worse since they limit where the money can be spent and have other restrictions like loss in value over time. Yet norms now would have us believe this is some nicer way of giving a present than handing someone a check.
Kill this atrocious monster by promising never to feed it.